My friends have a small shop and their parents are the traditional small holder farming types, so I actually spent most of my time outside of Hoi An during the

My friends have a small shop and their parents are the traditional small holder farming types, so I actually spent most of my time outside of Hoi An during the day in the mangrove trees. With my SLR and a Samsung Series 9 which didn't appear to mind 45°C heat. It really does change how the brain works (I'm back in London atm, longing for such things). I was of course covered head to toe in DEET. Anyone reading these things should know its not all golden! If your not working in the local economy, they really don't mind at all. The worst you'd have to do is show a bank account with some money in. The problem they face is mostly due to tourists who can't really pay their way, the amount of 'White Crime' surprised me, espesually in the smaller towns, pretty much all crime was attributed, rightly or wrongly, to tourists desperate for money. For Chiang Mai its easy to get a 6 month visa, and you can always do a run to the border with Burma to get an easy extension. I would really recommend the north of Thailand, a lot less red light, a lot more relaxed. Ultimately when I was there I was on holiday but I just didn't stop working on my UK based work, I had a couple of laptops with me. All money I earned was payed to my UK company, paying UK rate of taxes. I realise that was a bit silly, and I should have had an HK registered company, and been paying much less tax. However if your US citizen, you have less options in the matter due the whole state of been expat/nondom under US tax law, so YMMV. But no matter how you arrange it, so long as your not working in a bar they won't care at all. Even if you do work illegally I believe the bribes are very cheap anyway.